Power went out for like 30-40 minutes...

[Guden Oden]

As I sit at my puter swearing that Blizzard is having a realm maintenance cycle right when I want to log in (and then finally reach the server status page and see my realm is actually online and not down at all), the speakers go BOOM and all the lights in my apartement flicker out. My computer's still happily whirring away, thanks to the miracles of an APC Back-UPS CS 500 however, so I just continue to read for another 6 or so minutes until the battery status has dropped so low that the UPS is beeping constantly (that's what a fully packed prescott system does to such a small UPS ). I press the power button to shut the computer off, by which time it is apparantly already busy going into sleep-to-disk mode. Anyway, the thing shuts off.

I go outside, climb up to the top floor and stand on the outside walkway. Like half the city's without power! Very creepy sort of...

Of course, at my latitude, it's light outside almost all around the clock this time of year, so there was no real problem seeing.

Then when I return to my apartement again and stick the key in the lock, I hear a whirr of electric fans spinning up and all the lights come back on. Talk about perfect timing!

 

[Crisidelm]

Power's kept going off (luckily for few minutes) constantly around here, due to the heat wave that's hit Italy. Not far from 40°C in the North, but as well in the Centre of Italy.

 

[Clashman]

I had to deal with over 8 hours of power outage here last Friday. That was by far the worst we've had. We've had other brownouts, but this was by far the most extensive one. Sometimes the school deliberately turns off our power at night to save energy, (although in the student dorms that's standard policy). This one, though, was from around 2:00/2:30 to around 10:30.

 

[digitalwanderer]

We lost a section of the Highland grid for two hours last Friday(?), it SUCKED!!!

Right as it was getting dark out, my kids freaked, and the house was really quiet. (There's usually the background hum of the systems fans in, well in every room of me home!)

Me no likey-likey service interruption, but they're the exception and not the rule around my parts.

 

[Guden Oden]

I have no idea what the situation is on power delivery in china, I would think it's a little messier than in the west. It's very rare that I lose power however, the longest interruption I personally have ever had was like two days or something, and that's because workers used a circular powersaw to cut up a concrete floor to install an elevator, and as it happened, the power cables to my apartement block (as well as several others) ran right under that floor and got cut as well in the process.

Shoddy construction work some 30-odd years earlier; the blueprints had the cables running like half a meter deeper down than what was actually the case.

Last night a transformer station cut out for unknown reasons it seems, which caused the power loss. It lasted even longer for some, and not just around 35 minutes give or take a little, as it did for me. Maybe I'll hear more on the local news broadcast in about 45 minutes.

 

[ZoinKs!]

I mentioned in the weather thread that the power's been flickering off this morning. I thought it had stablized but then, wouldn't you know it, it flickered off again. It pops off for less then a second. No big deal... except I don't have a ups so the pc shuts off.

Last week, a large and strong t-storm had the power off for 4-5 hours. Falling trees knocked down some lines.

One time back in the '90s, we lost power for three days. A blizzard caused power lines to go down all over the countryside. Not a good deal since our house is electrically heated. We now have a gasoline power generator and LP gas fireplaces.

Living in the country is great but there are some disadvantages, particularly when you live on the last link of the power line.

Anyways, the lightning has picked up again so it's time to power down the pc.

 

[Guden Oden]

Zoinks,

THREE DAYS?! I feel like one of the guys in the famous monty python skit who brag about their supposedly horrid childhoods, but do a google on "hurricane gudrun" for a bit of an eye-opener.

It struck northern europe, particulary denmark and southwestern parts of sweden on january 4-5th and felled around thirty MILLION trees in sweden alone. Some people were without hour for two months or even longer in the winter due to all the storm damage. Later snow and winds would knock down already weakened trees over newly repaired power lines, or make breaks in previously unsevered sections of the grid, and a number of people died when trees or vertically standing roots fell on top of them during the work to clear up the mess... Worst weather-related disaster in this country in modern memory probably.